Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne discusses Magic: The Gathering – Marvel Super Heroes prerelease weekend and the launch of Warhammer 40,000 11E.
The store is two-thirds of the way through the Magic: The Gathering – Marvel Super Heroes prerelease weekend along with the release of the new Warhammer 40,000 11E: Armageddon boxed set and a few thoughts have struck me:
Sales are going to keep encouraging companies to do this.
Although actual product movement has been so-so, the price of the items we have been selling have been significantly above our average sale per customer. While we are not doing Universes Beyond – Final Fantasy numbers, most stores are reporting healthy sales of both the Marvel Super Heroes and Armageddon sets. I saw a comment from one larger store saying they had already done $20,000, and they were not even halfway through the day.
We’ve sold far more, in dollar amount, of the Marvel Super Heroes Collector Boosters than we have the Play Boosters. The top three Magic sets in terms of sales are all Universes Beyond sets (Final Fantasy, Tales of Middle-earth and Avatar: The Last Airbender, see “’Airbender’ #3“); not a single in-universe set on the list. Given this, it only makes sense for Wizards of the Coast to look for more licenses to build more Universes Beyond sets.
Meanwhile, over in the land of Games Workshop, my customers have not batted the proverbial eye at the $300 price point for the new Armageddon set. We ordered heavy numbers for our store size and have already sold through three-quarters of that in just one day. Their customers may complain about GW’s ever increasing price creep, but when push comes to shove, they still willingly part with the cash for a new set.
More collectors than players.
Our prerelease turnout was not nearly as abysmal as turnout was for our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles prereleases (see “Rolling for Initiative-A Bang and a Whimper“) as we have done double those numbers so far, really surprising several of my staff members who expected a redux of the TMNT prerelease attendance. However, attendance is far below the numbers we saw for Edge of Eternities or even Aetherdrift.
Several of the players at our event even commented they did not care for playing with the Universes Beyond sets, they just liked the opportunity to come out and play in a prerelease. Most of the Marvel Super Heroes buyers we have had so far did not show up for either prerelease event. People who play Magic generally prefer playing with the in-universe sets.
Those who want to collect, rip packs for views on social media, and find valuable cards they can sell to someone else gravitate towards the Universes Beyond sets. Incidentally, cards only have value as long as someone else is willing to pay you more for them than you paid and eventually this nostalgia-driven boom will come to an end.
There were no prerelease promo cards. About half our players lamented the end of the prerelease stamped promo card included in past prerelease kits. Though the cards never developed much value, a large number of players liked to hang onto them as a souvenir of prereleases in which they participated. Here’s hoping WotC changes its mind and brings them back.
Comments? Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Source: ICv2
